Cornworthy Vicarage, Totnes.
There is no legal foundation for the statement that marriage with a second
cousin is valid, and with a first cousin invalid. The following quotation
from Burn's _Ecc. Law_ by Phill., vol. ii. p. 449., will probably be
considered to explain the matter:
"By the civil law first cousins are allowed to marry, but by the canon
law both first and second cousins (in order to make dispensations more
frequent and necessary) are prohibited; therefore, when it is vulgarly
said that first cousins may marry, but second cousins cannot, probably
this arose by confounding these two laws, for first cousins may marry
by the civil law, and second cousins cannot by the canon law."